Hello My Name is Nathan and I am an Addict....

"Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. ¹⁴ Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵ And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. ¹⁶ Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." 
James 5:13-20 


Hello my name is Nathan and I am an addict... of what you may ask? Of sin. 
Sin is the issue in my life, does it matter what sin? Not really, if it did the I wouldn't have enough space on this block to write them. So my addiction is not ______ (please write on line), rather my addiction is just sin, all of it.
It knocks on my door when I wake up, it pushes me to go this way or that way, calling me to look, to do, to think. I have lived my life a slave to it for years, it has haunted me my entire life. It's hard not to give in, not to step over the line and let it have the power.
For a lot of my life I was addicted to sin, I was addicted to the rush, the buzz it gave me for those few moments I enjoyed it. But after... after I sat there, stood their, laid there, like waking up with a hangover it hurt. I felt guilty, dirty, I was disgusted by who I had become because of it. But time and time again I would go back to it, like a drug it called for me to get a quick fix, here there any where. I had become reliant upon it, upon sin.
Then the lies came, the lies of feeling alone, of being alone. "No one will understand, no one will like me, everyone will hate me, judge me, emotionally spit on me". So we put on our smiling masks... we move through life ignoring, neglecting, and denying the fact that we have an addiction. But soon it starts to get in the way, the cravings, the wanting, it begins to not simply happen in the time where we can hide from everyone else who will see it, it invades, unwanted, uninvited, and we are unprepared. It begins to control our thoughts, our actions, our words, our very life.
So we try to hide it even more, but it gets even worse. We know we need to let people in to help, but what if they don't understand? what if they judge me, what if... what if... what if. Those famous two words Satan wields like a giant sword, waving it in our face. So we just fall deeper into the hole.
But here's the thing. WE DON'T HAVE TO. James tells us, in summary, we can tell our brothers and sisters in faith, and should tell them about our addiction to sin, that through doing that we begin to help each other, working together to the goal, the prize, the one who will fill that desire we are trying so hard to please.
So my name is Nathan and I am an addict, are you?