Chapter 3: The Spiral

Adolescence didn't slow the spiral—it accelerated it.

By high school, acting out had become a daily ritual. Fantasies fueled by magazines, memories, and stories kept me hungry. And high school offered new fuel: girls who were just as curious, just as broken, just as eager to explore as I was.

It started slowly—go on a date and see how far I could go. When one girl had had enough, I would just move on. I wasn't looking for love. I was looking for access. I wanted to see and touch what was in the magazines. These weren’t girls. They were a collection of parts to be used for my curiosity and pleasure. Each encounter became another rung in the spiral. But the cost to the girls still haunts me. How has the treatment they suffered at my hands affected them as adults? And wives? And mothers?

After each date, I'd act out—followed by guilt, a cry for forgiveness, and a promise to stop. Then I’d do it all again.

That became the basis of the spiral that would follow me for the next forty years.

Eventually, I found a girl who was just as curious and rebellious as I was. Our exploration and experimentation knew no limit. But even that didn't satisfy. It only deepened the fantasy. The acting out. The shame. The cycle.

Fear of pregnancy. Fear of getting caught. Conviction of sin. None of it could break the grip.

Our eventual break-up broke my heart. But I didn't grieve. I medicated. I just found another girl. Then another. And on and on it went.

In the eleventh grade, something shifted. A spiritual stirring. A hunger for God. I started reading my Bible. Leading in youth group. Seeking righteousness. Matthew 6:33 became my anchor: "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." I developed a real hunger for intimacy with God. That hunger has still never abated.

But even as I pressed into God, the spiral didn't stop.

It just got quieter.

More deceptive.

More spiritual.

I couldn't admire a girl without objectifying her. I couldn't separate beauty from lust. I had stopped seeing souls. I only saw parts.

This dichotomy between my spiritual and sexual desires led to a despair that could find no relief.

By graduation, I was in a full-on tailspin.

I didn't know it yet.

But God did.

David and Bathsheba

2 Samuel 11—12

David was a man after God's own heart.

He wrote psalms. He led armies. He loved God.

But one evening, when he should have been on the battlefield with his troops, he saw her.

Bathsheba. Beautiful. Bathing.

And he didn't look away.

Ignoring the warning of his servant, he sent for her. Slept with her.

She became pregnant. So he covered it up. Then he killed her husband.

The spiral was swift.

Desire. Deception. Destruction.

And David, the worshiper, became David, the manipulator.

Until Nathan came.

Until truth pierced the spiral. "Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!”” (2 Samuel 12:7)

And David broke.

"Against You, and You only, have I sinned," he cried in Psalm 51:4.

He didn't blame Bathsheba.

He didn't justify.

He repented.

He turned his heart back toward Good.

And God forgave him.

The Spiral Isn't the End

Addiction doesn't start with darkness. It starts with desire.

Desire that becomes distorted.

Distortion that becomes deception.

Deception that becomes destruction.

But the spiral isn't the end. It's the place where grace waits.

David's story didn't end in shame. It ended in surrender.

And mine can too.

God doesn't abandon us in the spiral. He enters it.