This means that the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, and self-control, (Galatians 5:22-23) should increasingly characterize your life. On a practical level, it looks like replacing sinful habits (like watching porn) with new things, like learning more about God, investing time with people, showing kindness, and using your resources to help and encourage others. Our therapist once mentioned the idea that it is better to be 100% honest and have integrity even if it means risking the shame and possibility of losing your comfort zone. By lying to your spouse or family members, you can only ever have the mediocre happiness that comes with living an inauthentic life. She feels terrible about the damage she has caused to herself and to others. She also grieves the loss of her addiction because she used it like a crutch for a long period of time. Finally, whatever she used her addiction to cover up begins to emerge. This is often some kind of early trauma. The repair stage. Despite the negative consequences caused by their addiction, recovering addicts need to find ways to love and value the addiction. They should see the desire to act out as an emotional alarm going off. This alarm is saying that he is in some kind of need and should reach out. Recovering sex addicts should see their addiction as a part of themselves that they should value, not disparage. So, as it is your need, you consider ways to take care of yourself (stage 4). Options you consider are: calling an Uber, asking your spouse to catch a ride home and you take the car, etc. In this example, it probably ends here. With some of the messier, more complicated needs, if no clear option appears available to you right now and you are unable to come up with any alternatives after being active in your own hoop to communicate it relationally or attempt to meet it for yourself, can you surrender your need to God or your higher power, trusting that He may meet it or there may be something in it for you to learn about yourself? Cathy s brain is spinning, and her emotions are all over the map. She feels embarrassed and alone, disconnected and detached from reality. She questions whether her entire relationship has been an enormous lie. She questions her attractiveness, her sexuality and her ability to ever trust anyone again.