CHAPTER 4
LUKE WARM:
DAVID ANDERSON
“…There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of DEATH...” (Proverbs 14:20 KJV).
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David Anderson drove up and down Broad Street wondering, like always, should he pick someone up or not. He told himself a thousand he should stop and years have passed since that first promise. He was still cruising.
When it came to his weakness, vows resolutions, and promises meant nothing. He’d driven this path so often he could do it blindfolded. The first time he’d come to a place like this he was 13 years old.
An older cousin, who was 16, told him it was time to become a man. So he took David to the red light district. The young girl looked no older than he did, but she knew what she was doing.
She must have touched every single part of his body and his feelings came alive like the evening street lights. Nothing in all of his life had made he feel so incredibly alive. It felt good and nurturing. He was so calm and peaceful afterwards that he couldn’t wait to come back. And he’d been coming back ever since.
Sex had set his young soul free and he idolized it or maybe even worshipped it. Years had passed and his passion had not changed, weaned, or waivered. He always preferred the youngest one just like his first encounter. He was wretched about his lustful ways, but he didn’t care.
He was going to stop soon, the faces were becoming blurred and the bodies easily forgotten. It was just a fix for him and nothing else. He could have written a volume on the unending hunger of his carnal appetite. It was NEVER satisfied.
David refused to use pornography, dirty magazines, browse bookstores, or watch x-rated videos. If he couldn’t get what he wanted, exactly how he wanted it; he would do without, which was rare.
He liked the whole process. His emotions began to light up the moment he drove into the district, his body came alive, his mind became busy with anticipation, and his whole being was in a tizzy.
The visual thrill of watching the prostitutes walking back and forth was intoxicating. One of them would be with David in a few moments and his heart raced with excitement.
He didn’t have to come to the district. He could get action any time he wanted it with a single phone call to a toll free number. There were personal massages, dirty phone sex, sauna parlors connected to certain hotels, in any town in the USA, where young, ripe beautiful women routinely worked, but he wasn’t interested.
Some men worked for companies who hired public relations consultants, a fancy word for prostitute and they could have whatever they wanted. Sometimes they’d listen to their CB radios and find out what women drove pickups or vans with handles like pussycat or cuddles. Certain women worked the nation’s truck stops and rest areas. David avoided those kinds of connections.
Over the years, David had spent a fortune on prostitutes and he was getting ready to do it again. This was going to be his last time. He swore to himself! But he knew, as soon as the thoughts entered his mind, it was just another lie he told himself.
David Anderson couldn’t stop himself. He was a sex addict. His desire for the illicit would come after him every time he blinked his eyes, like a terrible rash and the only way to get relief....was to scratch it.
Sex demons screamed in his head...just one more time David, that’s all, one more time...over and over again the temptations urged him on...until he’d find himself cruising down Broad street. Here I am again searching for that rush...that thrill. David’s mind was completely engrossed in the moment and his obsession drove him on.
He’d been cruising for forty minutes, which was foreplay to him. The hunt and the prowl were just as thrilling as the conquest. The prospect of picking someone up was exhilarating too. His ritual started with the cruising, which filled his mind with memories of other successful forays, adding arousal and excitement to his routine.
David could actually smell the aromas, hear the music, picture the sleazy hotel room, feel the girl’s butterfly touches...he was ready for euphoria! His mind was so hyped! He didn’t care about the despair or the feelings of utter hopelessness he knew he’d feel afterwards.
There was ALWAYS the post-letdown when it was over, because he’d failed again to keep his promises to himself. There was also the nagging fear that maybe he’d never be able to stop. There were loads of self-hatred, shame, and despair, which would begin the cycle again.
This cycle of behavior waited for him in the wings, beckoning to him with open arms, and promising him calm and peace. David answered the call every single time, without fail, as he was at this moment.
He looked over the young streetwalkers. He’d already passed by them several times. He knew which one he wanted. He finally stopped the car and the pretty girl slid into the seat beside him. She knew what he wanted. She’d had him a couple of times before. David’s eyes were transfixed as he handed her the handcuffs and bandanna.
The girl already had a room. She already knew what David wanted and in a few minutes it would be over. He was the easiest five hundred dollar, which made David her favorite john. She could take the rest of the night off. They pulled into the Broadway Inn and he followed her to room seven.
Less than an hour later, the girl left and David sat in room 7 alone. He really was trying to stop and had phone therapy weekly, but his therapist had given him an ultimatum.
His therapist had been a sex addict himself. The program, he was going through, was intense and it that had helped hundreds of others overcome their sexual addictions. David had paid thousands of dollars to get into the program. He had, also, agreed to follow the program guidelines, because if he didn’t they would kick him out.
David didn’t want to get kicked out of the program, but this was his third and last strike. Harold, his therapist, knew every time he messed up. David wanted to finish the program. He’d done his research and knew this program was the best in the country or there was an excellent 28 day program in Thailand. No Thanks, he thought.
Why couldn’t he control this behavior? Why couldn’t he manage this inner hunger? Why was he so preoccuped with it? Harold was also a licensed pastoral counselor at Son City Ministries.
He wanted David to see him in person, but he’d said no. He already knew a Son City member that frequent Board Street and he didn’t want to run into anyone who might know him too!
Harold thought if David came out of hiding, it would be another “real” step toward his sobriety. He said together, they had already identified his addictive and unhealthy behaviors, but if David didn’t keep moving forward he would go right back into full blown addiction.
Harold promised their meeting would be private and confidential. Harold wanted to ensure David was on the right track with all the therapeutic approaches necessary to manage his addiction.
They had talked about David’s core beliefs, his focus, his spiritual life, needed lifestyle changes, maintaining the proper diet, his sleep patterns, and psycho education, but they had not talked about his possible need for medications, which would require an in-person visit.
When they pinpointed his problem it wasn’t merely the sex addiction itself, but it was what was going on in David’s brain, mentally, that made him do the things he did.
Harold warned David he needed to engage in the whole approach in order to manage his addiction. There was a very high relapse rate for addicts, period. Harold’s recovery was awesome and he’d been clean for years, but there was no data to show the actually recovery rates for sex addicts long-term.
Harold said it was good for David to connect with other addicts, like himself, because it was a powerful remedy.
Talk therapy with Harold made David feel he wasn’t alone. He wasn’t the only one with this problem and some people were worst then he was.
However, sitting, alone, in room 7, suffering through his tirade of guilt, shame, blame, and self-hatred made him feel ostracized. He was a sex addict and it was considered a disease. Unfortunately, David had never stayed sober more than a few days.
David Anderson was a husband, father, leader, and millionaire. He’d given his heart, mind, and emotions to his addiction, but he paid tribute to his wife, children, leadership role, and his economic status.
Paying tribute to his wife, children, leadership role and his economic status was both painful and oppressive. He was a devoted servant to his addiction, but a dutiful servant to the rest of the entities in his life.
It was David’s heavy burden to bear alone and he often groaned under its weigh. There was NO ONE to help him bear this burden, not even Harold and all his psycho-therapy could relieve him.
This burden was not so much his wife, or children, or leadership role, or economic status as much as it was the youthful choice he’d made years before, which he’d forced himself to make.
His youthful choice which he forced upon himself was “now” HIS YOKE. David couldn’t get the yoke off his neck. Now it was an oppressive and heavy burden in which he HAD to serve and pay tribute to for the rest of his life.
He was tired, bored, disinterested, and worn out from his long journey. In his youth, he thought way too high of himself. He wasn’t superman or the super hero he thought he was, and the telltale signs were his exhaustion, fatigue, worn-out brain, and weary eyes.
David had done a lot in his life, but he was mentally tired. He wasn’t exhausted, or fatigued, or tired in a way that he needed sleep or rest, but because of his heavy YOKE.
In fact, in many ways David was WIDE AWAKE, but the shoulders of his soul was sagging from the heavy burden of his “OWN” yoke. David had followed, with precision, the rules and regulations, but they had depleted him instead of empowering him. He read something once: “...why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires...” (Colossians 2:20-23 NLT).
Everything he’d built with his wife, children, in his leadership roles, and financially was done at his “own” expense, his “own” pious self-denial, his “own” human devotion, his “own” bodily discipline, and after a lifetime of withdrawals, he was shockingly depleted. And like the bible verse said, he had NOT conquered his “own” evil desires!
David’s YOKE, therefore, had become a heavy burden because he, himself, was a limited resource.
His “youthful choice” was meant to provide him with butterfly wings, and joy, and happiness, and freedom and endless advantages, but it had harvested a YOKE of oppression, around his neck, instead.
David served and paid tribute to his wife, children, leadership positions, and economic status day after day, and year after year, but not with the devoted freedom of heartfelt love, but like a dutiful slave.
David was a victim of his “own” circumstances. Through his willful and voluntary choices, he’d sown the garden of his choices. In the beginning, he was in total agreement with the life he’d planted, but it was the harvest he reaped that gave him reason to pause. The responsibility to sustain such a life or harvest and to honor every damn promise he’d made was “humanly” impossible.
David’s life was HUGE. His puny soul and limited flesh could not fulfill the life he’d self-designed. When his self-designed life and the individuals within that life NEEDED him; he was OBLIGATED, FORCED, or REMINDED of his duty to serve them and pay his tributes.
Now his puny soul and limited flesh struggled with feelings of constraint and weariness as he attempted to keep up with his expenses which were, rightfully, owed through day-after-day services and tributes.
David once thought he was an unending stream of water, but somewhere along the way, he’d dried up. Yet his “own” life and all the people in it were a constant reminder he’d committed to being their water supply. It was his debt and he could no longer pay it adequately.
He OWED them and there was no way to AVOID paying, but NOW every dutiful service and tribute felt like a burden or YOKE of BONDAGE.
David was miserable. He’d followed the rules and regulations, but the seeds he’d planted had harvested a YOKE. His life was filled with services and tributes that were dutiful labors that pressured and wearied his soul.
He was a SLAVE to his own creation. He bowed his head and shoulders to pay servitude and tribute to what his choices had harvested. He had cultivated them himself and now felt forced to pay, in reality, what he justly owed.
He had freely chosen the life he wanted, but the consequences of those choices now made mandatory demands upon him by stealing his freedoms, forcing his labors, requiring his services, and requesting his tributes.
David Anderson had successfully, through every human effort, planted the garden of his choice. His wife, children, leadership roles, and economic status were his harvest. He was satisfied and proud UNTIL it became costly to him.
David had NO IDEAL how costly it would be to maintain such a HARVEST. No matter how wonderful, easy, awesome great, or magnificent the HARVEST may be it STILL had to be serviced and tribute had to be paid.
When your soul becomes puny or shriveled and your flesh weak and limited the dutiful service, to maintain the harvest, must be paid whether with joy or with bitter anger or resentment.
David wanted the HARVEST, but without all its demands, needs, and expectations. What he KNEW now was that he couldn’t PAY the DEBT, properly. To sustain his HARVEST it took more than his humanity. He was angry for putting himself in such a stressful situation. He felt horrible. He was also angry at his HARVEST for its demands, but dutifully he kept his responsibilities up.
David’s responsibilities grew through a lifetime of hard work and he believed in paying his debts. It was what HE wanted, yet, he was beginning to blame and judge his “own” HARVEST as heartless, selfish, and inconsiderate.
David knew it wasn’t the fault or blame of his HARVEST; the entities or the people. He was the one who wanted to relinquish the YOKE he, himself, had planned or put around his own neck.
His services and tributes to his “own” HARVEST was what he, rightfully, owed. His life, his good fortune, and all the good people in it had GIVEN to him generously and out of goodwill. David had TAKEN-IN everything and reaped every benefit.
Yet, paying back the proper restitution of gratitude through devotional, heartfelt service and tribute was a BURDEN of duty for him. He was MAD and ANGRY that he HAD to pay them back.
But David “DID” his duty, because his reputation was at stake. He wanted to be trustworthy and continually exhibit positive attributes. He served and paid his tribute to keep his reputation among them all. He didn’t want to give anyone a reason to bad mouth him, his roles, or his contributions, so he dutiful settle his debts.
David had received his HARVEST in life and was still reaping from it. He OWED his life and the individuals in it his favorable service and his promised tributes.
Nonetheless, David FELT bound and trapped. He was a burden-bearer who wore a YOKE around his neck to prove it. He was a laborer and a SLAVE of his own making.
His wife, his children, his leadership roles, and his economic status all existed because David was successful at planting the right seeds. These were “good” consequences, but he was too blind to see it. David Anderson dropped the key off at the front desk on his way out.
He breathed in the fresh air as he exited the back of the building. He had one last thought? What if I’m not who I think I am. What if I’m in denial? What if I am merely a self-delusion?
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