To start a series on addiction recovery, I feel that a good definition of addiction is in order.  I could get all clinical on you-but I won’t; that is rarely helpful to most of us lay people.   The best definition that I have ever encountered was given by my cousin at a pornography addiction recovery series that we held in our home back in 2012.

 This is what he said:

 “I wanted to stop viewing pornography so I stopped.

 And I stopped again and I stopped again and I stopped again.

 I can’t stay stopped.”

 Isn’t that a good, succinct description of the agony of addiction?  I have mulled it over again and again in mind because according to this definition I think that we all might find things that we need to work on.  AND it invites me into the tortuous world of the addict.  I can feel a bit of their desperation in this simple definition (which I think is an important part of diving into recovery with them).  So with that in place I am off and writing.