It was, afterall, a problem that had been completely solved - my spirituality revolved around a sense of gratitude that the only problem I had, had been solved by God. We seem to have a knack for coming up with clever ways to avoid the fact that we have problems. I remember resisting any practical conception of sin because I thought that, if I had any practical problem with sin, it would make God look bad - we called it 'having a bad testimony'. I apparently thought, at the time, as astonishing as it now seems, that I was responsible enough to be in charge of God's reputation. We try hard to look good, we try harder to look good, we try our hardest to look good and, eventually, the burden of the pretense overwhelms the strongest of us.
Recovery begins with the painful recognition that there is a problem.
It is a real, present-tense problem. It is only here that the healing can begin. The second fundamental which is common to all recovery is acceptance of the problem as my problem. Most of us have little difficulty in seeing all kinds of problems - some of us enjoy working on other people's problems, some of us do this professionally. But no one ever recovered from anything by working on other people's problems.