I returned home from an Easter adventure, going away these days is really special to me and coming back even more so.

I spent some time with a close friend and made a new friend in the process, there is something about being with others in the outdoors that transcends our background, standing, class, wealth and just about anything else you can think of that normally makes people different.

As we walked up the mountain taking small steps we seemed to take turns with who was leading the way.

I live in a flat area and my local national park offers some modest hills and one or two that just about qualify as mountains in name only. These proper mountains however are always a reminder that I don’t have the legs I think I have and I have some way to go before my coastal marathon.

The escape from modernity is always a small but regular required dose of medicine for me, it’s how I manage stress in a much healthier way than I did with my sexual compulsivity.

Along with this temporary environment hack is the shared experience in the presence of others. I have a great time on my own when camping and hiking but its much more memorable and rewarding when experienced with others.

On the way back to a small and beautiful village I spied this tree, it’s image caused me to linger and a thought process was sparked.

Seeing the exposed root system of a tree and the scar of the earth when a tree is uprooted is quite a sight, much like my life over the last couple of years. The initial storm uprooted me and I had to accept those roots could never take to the ground again.

My sexuality got hijacked at the age of twelve, I came into contact with far too much graphic material and with the best part of a quarter of a century later it is of little surprise that I had picked up a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms, behaviours, obsessions and distorted thinking. The roots had grown deep over the years.

The upset and fallout from coming to terms with my reality has meant there is a hole of time, headspace and priorities that I get to fill with better choices, behaviours and experiences.

Outer circle living is one of the most important parts of my life, in AA we have the script that says “I know I am to get along without acting out, but how am I to do so, do I have a sufficient substitute? Yes and it’s vastly more than that.

If you ask a room full of sex addicts what Penal Substitution means you may get an inappropriate answer but in short its the biblical concept that Jesus provided the atonement for us where we could never measure up under our own endeavours.

While the program is non religious I mention this as the program allows us to admit defeat and face the facts that we will never conquer this problem in one sitting or alone. The concept of a higher power is the foundational tool of recovery.

The program can seem a little cult like from a set of new eyes or those of an outsider. I often refer back to the concept that regardless of religious belief or any hangups about the G word that sex and pornography was my God, I was faithful and devoted in my worship to this false deity, I served earnestly and I diligently sought out the iconography associated with my life of secret rituals and sacrifice of dignity and self worth.

I guess that’s the point, addictions are spiritual illnesses or maladies, they are misplaced worship of powers greater than ourselves, we simply find in our quest for our higher power in recovery a substitution for our worn-out false gods.

In the place of the uprooted tree, I hope that I may continue in this journey of healthy spirituality, no churches, no pulpits and no pretence. Just a desire to connect and to serve my fellow man in the endeavour of a life free of our addictions.

I used to listen to this song called rootless tree, it feels like it’s taken on new meaning to me in recent times, it seems to capture the voice that was always crying out to be free.

Recovery is breaking up from the toxic relationship with myself, the abusive and destructive voice constantly saying I was never good enough, and the gravity of the secrecy that enslaved and incarcerated me for years no longer has the same power it once had.