By Preslin Issac (2019)
From 2008 to 2018, I worked at a residential drug treatment facility in Columbus, Ohio called Maryhaven. I wish I could say that my employment was some kind of divine directive, but the truth of the matter is I started working there to pay off the car note I had for my 1999 Chevy Tahoe. Before working there, I was a part of my churches inner-city ministry which was led by an elder that grew up in the area. As a Bible college student, I choose to be a part of the team that ministered in one of the cities roughest apartment complexes. My partner and I were assigned to 9 apartment buildings. I loved it all. The tent crusades, the dance ministry in which I was a part of, but most of all, the intimate encounters with the broken lives that inhabited in this community.
After a year and a half, I had to leave the evangelism to work. Maryhaven was a five-minute walk away from that apartment complex that I ministered at with passion for so long. I have heard it said, "there are no coincidences in the Kingdom". At Maryhaven, I started out in the Teen Care Unit with kids ages 12 to 18. I later transitioned to the Medically Assisted Opiate Treatment Program with adults. Unfortunately, during my tenure, I saw those who were in the Teen Care Unit move from weed and alcohol to the much harder drugs such as cocaine, meth, and heroin. It was sad to see this reality, but I felt privileged to work with these individuals to reveal unto them their purpose. Many of the youth got a second chance after treatment, some decided not to commit suicide, but some fought to no avail.
In working with the adults, I found a greater passion and the Lord also showed me that it was a part of my healing and deliverance ministry. The Pentecostal church demonstrates healing and deliverance by the laying on of hands and the casting out of demonic spirit, which is biblical. The Lord used me in this way as I met with patients on a weekly, biweekly or monthly basis depending on where they were in their treatment. The individual sessions are where the healing and deliverance took place. I can feel the presence of God even as I’m typing and reflecting on this season. This is where things drastically turned around for me and led to my own deliverance.
Yes, this addictions counselor needed to be healed and delivered from his own drug of choice: Pornography. I heard someone say, “Adult problems are unsolved youth issues.” That statement is true, or at least, it was for me. The seed of pornography was planted in me at a very young age. I might have been around 7 or 8 years old. The apartment unit attached to ours was empty and the landlord often came by to store items in that unit. He allowed me to walk in the apartment with him as he was throwing items out that the last tenants didn’t cleanout. While he was in another room, I went through the trash that was a pile on the ground. I picked up an empty paper VHS holder and that was the first time I viewed a naked woman and a naked man dressed weird. Something was happening inside of me and I didn’t know what it was. The landlord came out of the room and I quickly moved the holder back to the ground and shuffled it around among the trash on the floor. He chuckled and said, “I know what you were looking at”. He came another time to the apartment and forgot to lock the door. I knew it a chance for me to go back and take a second look. There something in me that knew that it was wrong to go in there to look at that image again, but I did anyway. There were many other occasions when I went into that apartment until the landlord finally cleaned out the entire apartment. The VHS container was gone, and I was upset.
This back and forth viewing of sexual images would be a cycle in my early adulthood that spanned over 10 years. It was until I was 19 years old that I had the unfortunate opportunity to view porn images again, but this time it was by way of the internet. To provide context for my early sexualization, it is important to note that between the ages of 6-8 I was sodomized by a teenage boy and a girl about 2 years older than I showed me how to have sex. As one who grew up in church, I knew better but still had sex even while being a young adult leader. I hated the shame. When I made the decision to be a “real” Christian, I abstained from sex, but the pornography came back in. This time stronger than ever. I served in Bible college and struggled the whole time. I prayed hard and tried hard to abstain and meant it. I can remember during my first semester after coming back to the dorms from my security job to lay down in my bad. As I lied on the bunk bed, a literally dark and shadowy figure came into my room and got on top of me. I didn’t know what was going on at first, but the Holy Spirit quickened me and I began to wrestle and knew what it was, a sex demon. I began to try to fight it off of me and with boldness cried out, “I’m not going back, I’m not going back.” With God’s power, it released its hold on me and I declared, “Get out of my room in Jesus name”, as I opened the door. Then out of nowhere, I heard the word or name “Incubus” in my spirit man and I asked out loud, what is that. I remembered looking it up and read the definition. “The incubus, also called “Follet” in French, was an angel who fell because of lust for women according to many of the Church Fathers. This being appears to women often in the form of a sexual dream/nightmare, an, in fact, the Latin word for nightmare is “incubo”, meaning to lie upon. Its counterpart is the succubus, who appears to males.” So, while I was counseling and setting others free from the addictions of drugs and alcohol, the Lord had me to be a part of the initial co-ed Celebrate Recovery group.
Soon, the men had their own group, but no longer as Celebrate Recovery. It was a group of men who sought freedom not only from various addictions but also had marital problems, life challenges, etc. It was there that I began to share my personal struggles. It was the best decision I ever made, second only to giving my life to Christ. I got tired of sowing seeds for this struggle and sin issue (I have a totally different perspective on that now), tired of shouting and ministering as a leader while I was still struggling. I learned about inner healing through my seminary professor who was a Methodist.
I discovered the power in allowing the Holy Spirit to take me to the wounded places in my life that caused me to run to pornography for relief. Just as I have shared with my clients about avoided people, places, and things, I had to continue to do that myself, but the bulk of the work was yielding to the work of the Holy Spirit to be healed of undealt wounds in my life. While pornography was not the initial problem, it was the result of various problems in my life.
So it is with most addictions. People run to something external to cope with internal turmoil. Brother/Sister, if that is you, please know that you can run but you cannot hide. What you are running from will not relent. You cannot will it to stop because its roots run deep. The only thing that brings true and lasting freedom is allowing the Lord to reveal and heal the root. Inner healing brings the deliverance that so many are desperate for. I encourage you to find someone that can help walk you through this process. As a result of inner healing, I have been living my best life for quite a few years now. This can be your testimony too!
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World Harvest Bible College and Ohio Christian University with a degree in Addictions Counseling. Currently an M.Div student at Ashland Theological Seminary and Chaplaincy resident at Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington, IL. Preslin spent eleven years working within the addiction recovery community in Central, Ohio.
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