Feed the Right Wolf

Yes, I cannot wait to get my own copy and start reading. In the mean time I made it through the weekend sober and am about to start a very busy week. Monday mornings have been bad recently and I've decided I am calling an SAA member as soon as I get out of the shower, regardless of whether I have a craving. I am sick of waking up tired and stumbling over to the computer to browse around the internet; I know what will happen and for once I want to just head out for the day without acting out.

I need every precious hour of this week, I cannot afford giving any way to my addiction (not to mention the extra hours dwelling on things if I act out). I know I shouldn't put extra pressure on myself but I need to be alert all week with the phone in hand. The most important thing right now is to be sober tomorrow, just one day.

Relapsed yesterday to porn and later on images of clothed teenage girls. I felt a lot of shame about the latter but an SAA member said not to worry about what exactly it was I watched, and worry about staying sober today. God doesn't care what the most recent thing I looked at is, the point is it happened, whether it was last year or last month or just now--I acted out and I need to admit it, it could be a hardcore video or some photos or whatever, the content makes no difference--acting out is acting out. Would I feel better if I looked at mild porn today, so that the most recent act out wouldn't be the really shameful stuff? Would it be better if my most recent day was some random weekday rather than my birthday or a holiday, so it would be easier to forget? Sometimes I think so, i shouldn't but I do. Somebody talk some sense into me, because this dwells on my mind a lot these days.

But today has been sober which makes me feel good and I've only had two act out days in the last week. I have also begun attending a second meeting and had my first one tonight. It will be helpful to get to two meetings a week now. I am still trying to get a period of totally sobriety in, no P or M for two weeks. Some people go longer like 30 days or so, but I think this is a good goal for me to refresh myself. Meanwhile I am going to continue to go good things, be friendly to people in my life and be selfless--masturbating to porn is an extremely selfish activity, and I believe that being selfless will go a long way toward recovery.

Hi James,

What I'm hearing is shame. Thinking about and getting stuck on what you last viewed is going to keep you stuck in the past. The SAA member's advice to focus on staying sober today is great; whether the most recent relapse was the the most or least severe, your sobriety today is all that's important.

Your friend,
Absolution.

_________________
Sobriety Date: October 25, 2011
"Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it."
-Rabindranath Tagore

Yeah he is totally right. Trying to manage this is as stupid as saying "I'll only look at porn once a week until I ween myself off of it" or "I'll only look at the mild, less extreme porn." That is not how recovery works, you can't rationalize things as such, you have to be cut and dry about it--porn is porn, it's all bad for you and that's the bottom line.

Furthermore, I need to just come to terms with the fact that I am quitting for good, and sobriety is all that matters, not whether I quit in a certain manner or not. Rather than trying to plan it so I forget my last time, I should embrace it, and be happy that I was able to finally put together a long streak of abstinence rather than worry about the day it started. I mean, I've already written out a first step that contains the truth about all the terrible things I have watched and masturbated to, all the risks I took and the lies I told to cover it all up--if keeping all of that in mind is a helpful reminder of why I am on this journey, than who cares if I happen to remember a recent act out. I am never going to forget some of the sites I visited the past few years, so why dwell on it--all that matters is that when I do remember them that I will feel proud that that was the old me that did that, not the new me.

Today was 100% sober and I am happy, I have a meeting tomorrow and I am looking forward to it.

Hi James,

You wrote in your post from 19 March:

Such a belief is a man trap. There is no healthy masturbation. The only healthy way to experience sexuality is a (healthy) relationship with a woman. The most healthy has always been the marriage.

the aim of sex drive is to find a straight partner and fall in love with them and then as time goes by come children . The aim cannot be masturbation - it's a kind of unnatural degeneration. For people believing in God - masturbation is something opposing Him because He gave the man sex drive to find himself a women and surely not to play with penis and one's own hand.

Hi James,

There are people in SAA that have come to be able to masturbate in a healthy way. Usually, though, it's after a good amount of sobriety. My sponsor waited until he had a year of sobriety, but it's different for everyone. Working with a sponsor can help make the decision.

Your friend,
Absolution.

_________________
Sobriety Date: October 25, 2011
"Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it."
-Rabindranath Tagore

Thank you both for your comments on this subject. An SAA member one of my meetings last week (I go to two meetings a week now) mentioned he went about 100 days with no masturbation whatsoever and didn't even experience a wet dream during this time. I think Patrick Carnes states that he did something similar in his recovery, though I cannot totally confirm this. My plan is to just, for now, take it one day at a time and try not to masturbate and not too look at any porn. At some point in the future, if I can get a long period of sobriety, I will make a decision on whether I would be able to masturbate say once a week in a healthy way without fantasy.

I do not see myself getting married until maybe 5 years from now; part of me worries that if I actually did not orgasm for 1700 plus days than I would freak out when I had sex with my wife for the first time. I mean, one time a few months ago, I made it like 12 days without orgasm and when I finally masturbated it was a pretty intense feeling. I also worry that my body has been so used to orgasming every day, that it is producing semen at an accelerated rate, and that I am going to have several wet dreams over the course of the next few months. But I suppose some bodily discomfort is a small price to pay for sobriety, and I am committed to being non-sexual for as long as I need to in order to get healthy.

Anyway, happy to be sober today; I usually do well on days I have a meeting and today was no exception. I just ordered "answers in the heart" on amazon.com and I am looking forward to getting it so I can start my day by reading it.

Instead of thinking about how you might freak out when you have sex with your wife try this. Since you say masturbation a period of sobriety contains intense feelings then imagine going 1700 days without it and having your first night with your wife. You will remember that night forever and it will one of the best emotional experiences. However, if you would have masturbated a day or two or even a week before your night with your wife, that night will not feel much different from all the other masturbation. Also, masturbation can lead to premature ejeculation as the body tries to make the process faster due to repetiveness. I just think of how embaressing that would be and boosts my motivation.

_________________
Denial leads to repeated failure

James, keep working hard, you will succeed. We are here for you.

_________________
Sobriety date: November 6, 2011
In all you do, remember the end of your life and then you will never sin. Sirach 7:36

Love and time can heal just about anything.

Failure is not an option.

Thanks for that advice, I am really looking forward to that day. In the meantime, I need to stay sober and that will never happen. Today was really brutal, I felt sad and was horny a lot. On three separate occasions I found myself browsing photos of girls on websites (which I will block tomorrow morning) and was about to masturbate to them. The first time I did ERP and felt better, the second time I was just starting to masturbate when I called an SAA member and chatted with him for 15 minutes. I then went outside for a few hours and took my mind off things. Then just now I went back to the site and looked around, but told myself that all of this crap was really boring and wouldn't do anything for me.

Therefore, I am excited to have kept up my streak of no masturbation though I am disappointed I was looking at inappropriate photos and lusting. Still, I am glad I remembered to do ERP (and it worked!) and glad I made some good decisions in general. I am almost at a week sober but every time I post Sunday night I seem to cave first thing in the morning when my roommate leaves. I am going to wake up and pray right off the bat, and then have my phone on hand ready to go. I am packing my things up in advance and if need be, I will skip breakfast just to get myself out of the apartment faster. I pray that God will give me the courage to make a call tomorrow and not hesitate to ask for help.