Addiction doesn't announce itself.
It settles in quietly, disguising itself as familiarity, comfort, need. By the time you recognize it, it's already learned your routines, your weaknesses, the exact moments when your guard is lowest.
I told myself it was the last time.
I meant it—every time.
But desire has a memory longer than intention. It remembers how to wait. How to circle back when you're tired, lonely, unsure. It doesn't demand everything at once. It just asks for one more moment.
And I kept giving it that.
My days started revolving around anticipation. Not even her—just the feeling. The thought. The possibility. My phone became an extension of my anxiety, lighting up my chest every time it buzzed, disappointing me when it didn't.
That's when I knew.
I wasn't choosing anymore.
I was responding.
Faith had become something I visited when I felt guilty. Desire had become something I obeyed when I felt empty. And emptiness was showing up more often than peace ever did.
I stopped sleeping well. When I did sleep, my dreams were restless—half desire, half regret. I woke up drained, already craving something I knew would leave me worse than before.
The scariest part wasn't the pull.
It was how normal it started to feel.
Addiction doesn't always destroy your life immediately. Sometimes it just shrinks it—slowly replacing purpose with obsession, clarity with impulse, freedom with routine.
I'd catch my reflection and barely recognize the man looking back. Not broken. Not reckless.
Just tired.
Tired of the fight.
Tired of pretending I was still in control.
I tried praying again, but my words felt rehearsed. Like I was saying them out of obligation, not surrender. Faith was still there—but it was standing at the door, waiting for me to be honest.
One night, sitting alone in the quiet, it finally hit me:
I wasn't addicted to her.
I was addicted to what she helped me avoid—silence, self-examination, the parts of myself I didn't want to confront.
She wasn't the escape.
She was the distraction.
And distractions always demand more over time.
That realization hurt more than any consequence so far, because it meant the problem wasn't external anymore.
It was internal.
Addiction isn't about pleasure.
It's about avoidance.
And until I faced what I was running from, no amount of walking away—or falling back—was going to save me.
For the first time, I didn't ask God to take the desire away.
I asked Him to show me what I was afraid to sit with when the desire was gone.
Because healing doesn't start when temptation disappears.
It starts when you're willing to be alone with yourself—and not run.