If this is your first time checking out Celebrate Recovery at Southwest, we are so glad you did! We understand what it’s like to admit that you have a problem and to walk through new doors for the first time. We want you to know that it’s okay to not be okay. We invite you to come and allow God to meet you where you’re at in life during the first hour of teaching and testimonies at Celebrate Recovery. During the second hour, we have a group specifically for you to help you get more familiar with what takes place here. You’ll learn how you can get plugged in to this new way of life. Thank you for having the courage to join us and we will see you Friday.

Many of us found that we had several characteristics in common as a result of being brought up in an alcoholic household. We had come to feel isolated, uneasy with other people, and especially authority figures. To protect ourselves, we became people-pleasers, even though we lost our own identities in the process. All the same, we would mistake any personal criticism as a threat. We either became alcoholics ourselves or married them or both. Failing that, we found another compulsive personality, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment.

When most of us think of an "angry" person, we think of someone who destroys themselves and their relationships through uncontrollable outbursts of rage. We usually picture someone who goes around slamming doors, yelling loudly, and making life miserable for everyone, including themselves. This is only one part of anger, because anger has many faces.

Do you allow the behavior of another person to affect your behavior so that you become consumed with that person and their problems? Do you put other people's needs and desires before your own? Are you a perfectionist? Do you compromise your own values and integrity to avoid rejection or other's anger? This obsession with the issues and problems of others becomes debilitating to us as we exhaust inordinate and inappropriate amounts of mental and emotional energy over them, leaving little, if any, energy for ourselves. In its broadest sense, codependency can be defined as an addiction to people, behaviors, or things.

If you find you cannot quit drinking or using street or prescription drugs entirely, or if you have little or no control over the amount you consume, you are probably an alcoholic and/or a drug addict. If that is the case, you may be suffering from a problem that only a spiritual solution will conquer.

With eating disorders, our behaviors range from daily binges to excessive exercise, to starvation and/or vomiting. For some of us it is Compulsive Overeating, Bulimia, or Anorexia. We have a need to be in control and have power over others and/or situations we encounter. Spiritually, we are bankrupt.

Many of us have tried various diet programs, exercising, medications or other ways to control our eating habits. We felt comfort in eating and found ourselves turning to food whenever we were hurt, angry or frustrated. Celebrate Recovery can provide freedom from the ongoing internal battle with food.

If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit gambling entirely, or if you have little control over the amount you bet, you are probably a compulsive gambler. A compulsive gambler is described as a person whose gambling has caused growing and continuing problems in any department of his or her life. If that is the case, you may be suffering from a problem that only a spiritual solution will conquer.

This group provides a safe place to deal with the unhealthy use of love and relationships as means of achieving worth. For those addicted to love and relationships, the goal of recovery is not to become a hermit living in the mountains, but rather to foster healthy relationships and eliminate unhealthy ones.

Are you caught in the Net? Do you go to adult web sites or watch adult pay-per-view movies? Is your secret life hurting those closest to you? Have you tried to stop and found that you keep going back – again and again? Lust started as an overpowering desire for pleasurable relief from inner pain, emptiness, or insecurity that we were not able to cope with in any other way. At first, it did provide the relief we sought. For a time, sex with ourselves or with others dissolved the tension, relieved the depression, resolved the conflict, and provided the means to deal with or escape from life's seemingly unbearable situations. But, what now?

Female sexual addiction is an addiction to using sexuality for the wrong reasons with the wrong people. Some characteristics may be the desire to be lusted after, fear of true intimacy, lack of self worth, and the need to control. Allow God total access to your mind and through Celebrate Recovery, you can change your belief system towards your sexuality.

Many of us blame ourselves for the addict’s behavior:

• If only I were prettier, thinner, taller, shorter, etc.
• If only I were more sexual...

  We give in to other's behaviors, only to lose ourselves in the process.