Heavenly Father just helped me through a very powerful temptation. Almost two seconds (not kidding) after my wife left for her support group meeting tonight, the devil launched one heck of an assault on me. I felt overwhelmed. I am grateful to God for giving me the awareness to see what was happening and what my brain was doing: starting my ritual for acting out.

I have learned that transparency and honesty are effective tools for keeping the adversary and my addictions at bay, so I immediately prayed for strength and reached out to my sponsor. I also knew that sitting idly and silently never ends well for me, so I turned on some peaceful tunes and started doing bodyweight exercises in my dining room. That helped me stay connected to the Lord and remain mentally awake.

As I was exercising and praying I still felt the overwhelming pull of my addictions. It felt more like repeated tugging or yanking, really… like a tide of irresistible yearning, first subsiding and then consuming me with alarming strength. I felt so powerless. But the music and exercise were still helping me stay focused on the Lord and grounded in reality instead of being lulled into complacency or swallowed up in fear.

I continued praying, exercising, and texting with my sponsor until I felt a sudden peaceful invitation to kneel and pray. I stopped what I was doing and did just that. Immediately Heavenly Father lifted the burden of stress and fear from my heart and mind. I felt His calming assurance that He is with me and will not forsake me. I felt loved. I felt important to Him. The overwhelming pull of my addictions was gone.

I feel so relieved and grateful! My fear and anxiety have been replaced with peace and reassurance. Talking with my sponsor really helped; I can’t emphasize that enough. I think any addict attempting recovery can relate to the insanity of the addiction once it’s triggered… it’s like my brain and body go on autopilot, the plane nose-dives into an immediate spin and I’m watching it go down in flames knowing that there’s nothing I can do to stop it. It’s a terrifying feeling.

That’s addiction! I am powerless! Once my brain flips the switch to auto-pilot-addict I can’t stop it. That’s not a cop-out, that’s just addiction. A cop-out would happen if I leave out this next part: God is NOT powerless! God CAN stop it! In fact, He took over my burning plane. I wanted to act out, so I submitted my will to my Heavenly Father and pleaded for Him to do for me what I cannot do for myself, and He took control. He did that for me tonight and I feel so grateful to Him for always being there when I need Him.

“Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things” (The Book of Mormon, Jacob 4:6–7).

I’m reminded of the account of Peter walking on water… the man walked on water! Surely he did that with the Lord’s power and not his own. I feel like the Lord just enabled me to walk on water. The storms, wind, and waves of my addiction and the devil’s power were upon me and I was so very scared, and just like Peter, I cried out to Jesus Christ, “saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught [me], and said unto [me], O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” That’s what I felt when I knelt in prayer tonight—Heavenly Father lovingly reminding me that I don’t need to be afraid of my addictions because He will always be there for me. I’ll certainly keep my distance (of course), but I can move forward with complete trust in God’s ability to save and strengthen me.

Just as He strengthened His disciples’ faith that night on the stormy Sea of Galilee, He has strengthened mine. And just as his disciples proclaimed on that ship with Him, I feel I can proclaim with them:

“And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased.  Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God” (The Holy Bible, New Testament, Matthew 14:32-33).